Waqar Ali Shah
Biographic Data
| ID | 737288 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Waqar Ali Shah |
| GIVEN NAMES | Waqar Ali |
| FAMILY NAME | Shah |
| SIGNATURE | SHAH W A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Mehran University of Engineering and Technology |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0651-8882 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Disrupting epistemic and institutional racism in applied linguistics and Tesol
Scholars in the field of applied linguistics have drawn attention to epistemic exclusion and racialization that manifest in various practices – academic publishing, hiring practices, linguicism, and institutional discriminatory structures influenced by colonial and neoliberal thinking. As a consequence, they challenge the historical dominance of the socioeconomic and geopolitical North in the field that discriminates against Southern scholarship …
Religious monoglossia/heteroglossia and discourses of women leadership in Pakistani higher education
A growing body of literature reveals how women in higher education are either excluded from leadership roles or face challenges when they take such responsibilities. The role of religion in Muslim societies is vital to understand Muslim women's sense of “self” and their academic leadership roles and engagement in social and political activities. This study uses Bakhtin's writings as well as a feminist perspective in Islam to unpack how religious …
The singular “national citizen” in English language textbooks in Pakistan
Textbooks have been widely studied as ideological apparatuses that shape and are shaped by social orders. In the present paper we consider the specific nature of this process in Pakistan, in regard to English Language textbooks produced as part of the National Curriculum (SNC) beginning in 2020 under the slogan "one nation, one curriculum" to end the educational disparity in the country. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, we analyze a …
De-centering the anthropocentric worldview in language textbooks
Our ecosystem has suffered severe material and epistemic damages as a consequence of contemporary neoliberal forces and Eurocentric onto-epistemologies in the Anthropocene era. These epistemic damages are also visible in how ELT textbooks are designed in local contexts. Informed by posthumanism and Southern epistemology, the present study analyzes the discursive/semiotic representation of nature, environment and human-nature relations in English …
‘Are we equal citizens?’
Language textbooks are discourse-led documents that contain official knowledge and construct specific learner subjectivities. Official knowledge embodies a worldview that serves the interests of dominant social group. In Pakistan, studies suggest that textbooks in general tend to distort the historical facts in favour of the national narrative. Using six language textbooks (Sindhi, Urdu, and English) taught at government-run schools in Sindh prov…
Thinking through “ in-betweenness ”
This article is based on a scholarly interview with Suresh Canagarajah about decolonizing language education and research in South Asia. The interview is focused on several themes, such as Canagarajah’s personal life trajectory as a decolonial scholar, colonial knowledge structures, English fever, and ethnolinguistic response to the hegemony of English, translingual university and transepistemic education in South Asia, decolonization through Eng…
Authoring a Muslim Feminist “Self” Through Travel Writing
This article aims to analyze nineteenth and twentieth-century travel writing by a Muslim woman writer, Nur Begum, who embarked on a 3-month journey to perform Hajj (pilgrimage). We aim to unravel her deliberate choice of poetic form as travel writing, which we argue consciously manifests her resistance against the prevailing patriarchal norms set by the Muslim culture. The study draws on Bakhtin’s dialogic framework of the human “self” as an agen…
From Compliance to Criticality
Englishisation of Sindhi
Abolishing the ‘abyssal line’ through southern translingualism
Enacting Colonial and Neoliberal Governmentalities through American ELT Programs in Pakistan
Several scholars have examined the increasing influence of neoliberalism in TESOL/ELT, including pedagogy, curricula, and policy discourses. These neoliberal rationalities are, however, not detached from coloniality in Global Southern countries. Taking Pakistan as a case study, the present study examines how neoliberal subjectivities intersect with colonial logics in US‐funded ELT programs in Pakistan. Since the 9/11 attacks, these programs have …
Dissecting the dominant framings of multilingualism in education in Pakistan
In the present study, we combine southern multilingualisms and linguistic governmentality frameworks to analyze the dominant framings of multilingualism in Pakistan and the subject positions they entail. Using critical policy studies and narrative analysis, we draw upon official policy documents (n = 6) and university students' narratives (n = 2). Our analysis suggests that the dominant framings of multilingualism in Pakistan are informed by (pos…
Universalizing the particulars
Universities, once regarded as places for producing organic intellectuals and critical thinkers, now are targets of neoliberalism, where managerialist discourses and lexis are dominant in various forms. Students and teachers are transformed into entrepreneurs, consumers and customers through such discourse and lexis. As a neoliberal variant used in education today, outcome-based education (OBE) – focus of the present study – can be viewed as one …
Poetry, ideology and heteroglossic realities in language textbooks
Using literature, more specifically poetry in English as F/L2 has grown over time. However, scholars disagree as to whether it makes any difference to language learning or what functions it serves. The purpose of this study is to examine what discourses poetry embodies, what identities it shapes, and whether it can confront dominant ideologies in English language textbooks in Pakistan. Based on Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach and Bak…
Neoliberalizing Subjects through Global ELT Programs
A recent surge in textbooks studies has revealed a closer link with neoliberalism and the way they construct neoliberal subjects. This paper uses Foucauldian governmentality as the conceptual lens to analyze the neoliberal discourses in EFL textbooks used in English Access Microscholarship (EAM)—one of the US‐aided global ELT programs in Pakistan. English language learners' views on course outcomes and textbooks were also examined. The study show…
Textbooks as ‘Neoliberal artifacts
The present study examined the traces of neoliberal ideology in O-level English language textbooks taught in elitist private schools in Pakistan that follow the UK-based international educational system administrated by the University of Cambridge under the General Certificate of Education (GCE). Analysis in the study was informed by Fairclough's CDA writings. Moreover, Bourdieu's views on neoliberalism were also considered to shed some light on …
Nation, alterity and competing discourses
Schools worldwide rely heavily on textbooks to disseminate knowledge and guide pedagogical choices. In critical discourse studies, textbooks have been shown to function as national policy instruments, carry a hidden curriculum, and enact a global agenda. The existing literature, however, pays a little attention to the fact that textbooks also represent competing discourses rather than merely being ideological apparatuses. The purpose of this stud…
Privileged discourses, teacher agency and alternative subjectivities
The present study examines English language pedagogy as a Janus-faced phenomenon based on interviews with 40 English language teachers in one province of Pakistan. The study draws on Foucault's writings on power relations and agency. The findings suggest that besides disciplinary techniques of surveillance and examination, states of domination maintained through officially sanctioned discourses and apparatuses, teachers also seem to exercise thei…
Globalectics, critical discourse studies (CDS) and Southern feminisms
Feminist research in critical discourse studies, like other strands of CDS, has been primarily North-centric. The transdisciplinary nature of this field has led to its theories and methods travel globally, including to parts of the Global South, without being critically appropriated. This has resulted in the neglect of a vast body of knowledge that is available in the Southern world (both in a geographical and epistemic sense). The neoliberal and…
Regimes of patriarchy and faith
Purpose This paper discusses the challenges that two doctoral researchers faced while researching religious minorities and women in a culturally sensitive society such as Pakistan. Their shared interest in sensitive topics related to gender and minorities in Pakistan led both researchers to collaborate in this study to provide a better understanding of issues in qualitative research in the same research context. They discuss the challenges of int…
Enacting Colonial and Neoliberal Governmentalities through American ELT Programs in Pakistan
Several scholars have examined the increasing influence of neoliberalism in TESOL/ELT, including pedagogy, curricula, and policy discourses. These neoliberal rationalities are, however, not detached from coloniality in Global Southern countries. Taking Pakistan as a case study, the present study examines how neoliberal subjectivities intersect with colonial logics in US‐funded ELT programs in Pakistan. Since the 9/11 attacks, these programs have …
Neoliberalizing Subjects through Global ELT Programs
A recent surge in textbooks studies has revealed a closer link with neoliberalism and the way they construct neoliberal subjects. This paper uses Foucauldian governmentality as the conceptual lens to analyze the neoliberal discourses in EFL textbooks used in English Access Microscholarship (EAM)—one of the US‐aided global ELT programs in Pakistan. English language learners' views on course outcomes and textbooks were also examined. The study show…
Textbooks as ‘Neoliberal artifacts
The present study examined the traces of neoliberal ideology in O-level English language textbooks taught in elitist private schools in Pakistan that follow the UK-based international educational system administrated by the University of Cambridge under the General Certificate of Education (GCE). Analysis in the study was informed by Fairclough's CDA writings. Moreover, Bourdieu's views on neoliberalism were also considered to shed some light on …
Globalectics, critical discourse studies (CDS) and Southern feminisms
Feminist research in critical discourse studies, like other strands of CDS, has been primarily North-centric. The transdisciplinary nature of this field has led to its theories and methods travel globally, including to parts of the Global South, without being critically appropriated. This has resulted in the neglect of a vast body of knowledge that is available in the Southern world (both in a geographical and epistemic sense). The neoliberal and…
Regimes of patriarchy and faith
Purpose This paper discusses the challenges that two doctoral researchers faced while researching religious minorities and women in a culturally sensitive society such as Pakistan. Their shared interest in sensitive topics related to gender and minorities in Pakistan led both researchers to collaborate in this study to provide a better understanding of issues in qualitative research in the same research context. They discuss the challenges of int…
Dissecting the dominant framings of multilingualism in education in Pakistan
In the present study, we combine southern multilingualisms and linguistic governmentality frameworks to analyze the dominant framings of multilingualism in Pakistan and the subject positions they entail. Using critical policy studies and narrative analysis, we draw upon official policy documents (n = 6) and university students' narratives (n = 2). Our analysis suggests that the dominant framings of multilingualism in Pakistan are informed by (pos…
Poetry, ideology and heteroglossic realities in language textbooks
Using literature, more specifically poetry in English as F/L2 has grown over time. However, scholars disagree as to whether it makes any difference to language learning or what functions it serves. The purpose of this study is to examine what discourses poetry embodies, what identities it shapes, and whether it can confront dominant ideologies in English language textbooks in Pakistan. Based on Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach and Bak…
Nation, alterity and competing discourses
Schools worldwide rely heavily on textbooks to disseminate knowledge and guide pedagogical choices. In critical discourse studies, textbooks have been shown to function as national policy instruments, carry a hidden curriculum, and enact a global agenda. The existing literature, however, pays a little attention to the fact that textbooks also represent competing discourses rather than merely being ideological apparatuses. The purpose of this stud…
Privileged discourses, teacher agency and alternative subjectivities
The present study examines English language pedagogy as a Janus-faced phenomenon based on interviews with 40 English language teachers in one province of Pakistan. The study draws on Foucault's writings on power relations and agency. The findings suggest that besides disciplinary techniques of surveillance and examination, states of domination maintained through officially sanctioned discourses and apparatuses, teachers also seem to exercise thei…
Globalectics, critical discourse studies (CDS) and Southern feminisms
Feminist research in critical discourse studies, like other strands of CDS, has been primarily North-centric. The transdisciplinary nature of this field has led to its theories and methods travel globally, including to parts of the Global South, without being critically appropriated. This has resulted in the neglect of a vast body of knowledge that is available in the Southern world (both in a geographical and epistemic sense). The neoliberal and…
Regimes of patriarchy and faith
Purpose This paper discusses the challenges that two doctoral researchers faced while researching religious minorities and women in a culturally sensitive society such as Pakistan. Their shared interest in sensitive topics related to gender and minorities in Pakistan led both researchers to collaborate in this study to provide a better understanding of issues in qualitative research in the same research context. They discuss the challenges of int…
Universalizing the particulars
Universities, once regarded as places for producing organic intellectuals and critical thinkers, now are targets of neoliberalism, where managerialist discourses and lexis are dominant in various forms. Students and teachers are transformed into entrepreneurs, consumers and customers through such discourse and lexis. As a neoliberal variant used in education today, outcome-based education (OBE) – focus of the present study – can be viewed as one …
Poetry, ideology and heteroglossic realities in language textbooks
Using literature, more specifically poetry in English as F/L2 has grown over time. However, scholars disagree as to whether it makes any difference to language learning or what functions it serves. The purpose of this study is to examine what discourses poetry embodies, what identities it shapes, and whether it can confront dominant ideologies in English language textbooks in Pakistan. Based on Fairclough's dialectical-relational approach and Bak…
Neoliberalizing Subjects through Global ELT Programs
A recent surge in textbooks studies has revealed a closer link with neoliberalism and the way they construct neoliberal subjects. This paper uses Foucauldian governmentality as the conceptual lens to analyze the neoliberal discourses in EFL textbooks used in English Access Microscholarship (EAM)—one of the US‐aided global ELT programs in Pakistan. English language learners' views on course outcomes and textbooks were also examined. The study show…
Textbooks as ‘Neoliberal artifacts
The present study examined the traces of neoliberal ideology in O-level English language textbooks taught in elitist private schools in Pakistan that follow the UK-based international educational system administrated by the University of Cambridge under the General Certificate of Education (GCE). Analysis in the study was informed by Fairclough's CDA writings. Moreover, Bourdieu's views on neoliberalism were also considered to shed some light on …
De-centering the anthropocentric worldview in language textbooks
Our ecosystem has suffered severe material and epistemic damages as a consequence of contemporary neoliberal forces and Eurocentric onto-epistemologies in the Anthropocene era. These epistemic damages are also visible in how ELT textbooks are designed in local contexts. Informed by posthumanism and Southern epistemology, the present study analyzes the discursive/semiotic representation of nature, environment and human-nature relations in English …
‘Are we equal citizens?’
Language textbooks are discourse-led documents that contain official knowledge and construct specific learner subjectivities. Official knowledge embodies a worldview that serves the interests of dominant social group. In Pakistan, studies suggest that textbooks in general tend to distort the historical facts in favour of the national narrative. Using six language textbooks (Sindhi, Urdu, and English) taught at government-run schools in Sindh prov…
Thinking through “ in-betweenness ”
This article is based on a scholarly interview with Suresh Canagarajah about decolonizing language education and research in South Asia. The interview is focused on several themes, such as Canagarajah’s personal life trajectory as a decolonial scholar, colonial knowledge structures, English fever, and ethnolinguistic response to the hegemony of English, translingual university and transepistemic education in South Asia, decolonization through Eng…
Authoring a Muslim Feminist “Self” Through Travel Writing
This article aims to analyze nineteenth and twentieth-century travel writing by a Muslim woman writer, Nur Begum, who embarked on a 3-month journey to perform Hajj (pilgrimage). We aim to unravel her deliberate choice of poetic form as travel writing, which we argue consciously manifests her resistance against the prevailing patriarchal norms set by the Muslim culture. The study draws on Bakhtin’s dialogic framework of the human “self” as an agen…
From Compliance to Criticality
Englishisation of Sindhi
Abolishing the ‘abyssal line’ through southern translingualism
Enacting Colonial and Neoliberal Governmentalities through American ELT Programs in Pakistan
Several scholars have examined the increasing influence of neoliberalism in TESOL/ELT, including pedagogy, curricula, and policy discourses. These neoliberal rationalities are, however, not detached from coloniality in Global Southern countries. Taking Pakistan as a case study, the present study examines how neoliberal subjectivities intersect with colonial logics in US‐funded ELT programs in Pakistan. Since the 9/11 attacks, these programs have …
Dissecting the dominant framings of multilingualism in education in Pakistan
In the present study, we combine southern multilingualisms and linguistic governmentality frameworks to analyze the dominant framings of multilingualism in Pakistan and the subject positions they entail. Using critical policy studies and narrative analysis, we draw upon official policy documents (n = 6) and university students' narratives (n = 2). Our analysis suggests that the dominant framings of multilingualism in Pakistan are informed by (pos…
Disrupting epistemic and institutional racism in applied linguistics and Tesol
Scholars in the field of applied linguistics have drawn attention to epistemic exclusion and racialization that manifest in various practices – academic publishing, hiring practices, linguicism, and institutional discriminatory structures influenced by colonial and neoliberal thinking. As a consequence, they challenge the historical dominance of the socioeconomic and geopolitical North in the field that discriminates against Southern scholarship …
Religious monoglossia/heteroglossia and discourses of women leadership in Pakistani higher education
A growing body of literature reveals how women in higher education are either excluded from leadership roles or face challenges when they take such responsibilities. The role of religion in Muslim societies is vital to understand Muslim women's sense of “self” and their academic leadership roles and engagement in social and political activities. This study uses Bakhtin's writings as well as a feminist perspective in Islam to unpack how religious …
The singular “national citizen” in English language textbooks in Pakistan
Textbooks have been widely studied as ideological apparatuses that shape and are shaped by social orders. In the present paper we consider the specific nature of this process in Pakistan, in regard to English Language textbooks produced as part of the National Curriculum (SNC) beginning in 2020 under the slogan "one nation, one curriculum" to end the educational disparity in the country. Using multimodal critical discourse analysis, we analyze a …
Sociology (14 works) · Multilingual Education and Policy (13 works) · Political science (9 works) · Ideology (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Global Education and Multiculturalism (7 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Philosophy (7 works) · Politics (7 works) · Social science (7 works)